


add chipotle, no tomato

by nibnobble



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Crunchwraps, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-06 23:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20299789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nibnobble/pseuds/nibnobble
Summary: “Hospital food,” said Relena, scornfully. “No. We’re going to Taco Bell.”





	add chipotle, no tomato

**Author's Note:**

> FOR #6
> 
> Like Heero, my Taco Bell knowledge is purely theoretical. A special thanks to my stoner friend for her kind assistance with this fic.

When the call came in that Relena Peacecraft’s car had been discovered abandoned on the side of the road, bodyguards dead in the ditch and Relena vanished, Heero had been in the middle of transporting Wing to a new hidden location under cover of a moonless night.

On the one hand, an enormous metal monster with a twin buster rifle, a beam saber, and numerous gatling guns was poorly designed for a covert extraction. On the other hand, the innocuous research facility nearest where she had vanished _was_ right on his flight path, and it would hardly take any time to take a look. And so, setting aside the uneasy flutter of his stomach as an emotion he would deal with once the crisis was over, he went.

He had barely touched Zero down before his attention was caught by a rustle in the brush. After a moment, Relena popped out -- very much alive and very clearly free.

“Oh,” Heero told Wing, relieved. “Good.”

After calling in that he had located the missing vice foreign minister and would bring her to the nearest Peacekeeper base, Heero scrambled down to meet her. Even in the dim glow of Wing’s lights, she was visibly mottled with rising bruises, knuckles raw and sleeve ripped to reveal a nasty burn that Heero’s experienced eye immediately pegged as a near miss from a bullet. It was too dark to tell if her pupils were wide from the dark or a concussion, but Heero noted with concern a goose egg on her temple. Half a tree was tangled in her hair.

“It’s about time,” Relena huffed, glaring at him.

“...?” questioned Heero, mostly curious. He was, upon reflection, not especially surprised.

“Knocked out one guard, climbed out the window, shimmied down a tree, crept through the bushes to a side building, hid in a ventilation shaft while they searched the garden, crept back into the garden while they searched the buildings. Scaled the wall.” Relena ticked these items off on her fingers, before sighing and gesturing to the ripped sleeve. “A guard saw the last bit and shot at me. Just clipped me, though.”

“You’re getting better at this,” said Heero, approvingly.

“Thank you,” replied Relena, graciously. After a moment she added, in tones of great significance, “I’m starving.”

Heero rarely felt hungry after mortal peril, but he supposed it wasn’t an unreasonable reaction. With a nod, he turned back to climb into the Gundam. Relena followed him, shedding leaves as she went.

Gundam cockpits were not really comfortable for passengers, but Relena had been inside before and knew how to squeeze into the best available spot. As she settled, Heero said, “The Preventers’ med team is waiting on standby, and they’ll have food ready. I’ll try not to jostle too muc--”

“No,” interrupted Relena. “I mean,” she corrected herself, “eventually yes. But I said I’m hungry.”

“They’ll have food,” repeated Heero.

“Hospital food,” said Relena, scornfully. “No. We’re going to Taco Bell.”

*

Fifteen minutes later, Heero landed Wing gingerly in a wooded lot behind a garish little restaurant.

“Why are we stopping?” Relena asked.

“You said you wanted to go to Taco Bell,” said Heero, confused.

Relena gave him a singularly unimpressed look. “Go through the drive-thru.”

“In a _Gundam_?” The logistics of taking a 16.7 meter high metal behemoth through a fast food parking lot seemed impractical at best. Duo claimed to have once taken Deathscythe to McDonald’s to buy a McRib, but like a lot of Duo’s stories Heero had never been able to decide whether he believed it. Did McDonald’s even _sell_ ribs?

“I’m dirty, my hair’s a disaster, and I nearly got shot 45 minutes ago,” Relena said, icily.

“How about you tell me your order and I walk over? You can’t take a Gundam through a drive-thru.”

“This is a vehicle, isn’t it?” replied Relena, tartly. “Heero, it’s 2 in the morning, the only people there will be stoners and drunks. It’s fine. Go. Through. The. Drive-thru.”

*

Heero went through the drive-thru.

As anticipated, this was a challenge.

Heero had been brought up with a rigorously monitored diet in which MREs and energy bars had predominated and fast food had been strictly off-limits. He’d come across cold burgers and stale fries scrounging through trash on certain missions, but he’d never been particularly impressed.

Even if he _did_ have extensive fast food ordering experience, though, he suspected he would have found maneuvering Wing up to the glowing menu in its narrow little lane a challenge. He was fairly certain he stepped on at least one car in the process, and spared a moment to silently apologize to the owner. He hoped it didn’t belong to one of the restaurant workers, at least.

A tinny voice drifted up from the speaker as he lowered the hatch. “Welcome to Taco Bell.”

Heero leaned awkwardly out, and paused, uncertain.

Relena lightly pushed him to the side and shouted down her order. “Two Crunchwraps with extra beef, extra nacho cheese, add 3 cheese, add chipotle, no tomato, add potato, two Fiery Doritos Locos Tacos, two lemonades, a 12-pack of Cinnabons, and 3 KitKat Quesadillas.”

“KitKat _quesadillas_?” asked Heero, perplexed.

“Yes,” said Relena and the voice in the speaker simultaneously.

Heero awkwardly inched Wing forward a step to the window just as the fast food worker stuck her head out. To Heero’s bewilderment, the woman looked a lot less confused or frightened than he would have expected. She looked bored, mostly, and faintly annoyed. Heero started to wonder what he’d missed in a lifetime of never going to Taco Bell.

"Hey,” the woman called up, “how far down can you make that thing crouch? My delivery pole is only fifteen meters.”

“You have a _delivery pole_?” Heero asked, bewildered.

“Of course,” said Relena and the worker simultaneously.

“Has every mobile pilot but me been taking their suit through fast food windows?” Heero demanded, even as he carefully tried to lower Wing down as far as he could without knocking out a fake support beam from the adobe siding.

The worker hoisted their order up on an expanding pole with an ease hard won through practice. Heero took the bags and the drink tray tentatively and passed them to Relena, then dropped the money into a small metal basket clearly intended for that purpose. As the worker calmly lowered the pole and disappeared within the drive-thru window, Heero turned to stare at Relena. Relena gave him a sweet smile.

“Let’s go find a nice spot with a view of the city to eat,” she said, already daintily unwrapping a Crunchwrap.

*  
Ten minutes later they sat together on Wing’s lowered hatch, contemplating the city lights as they ate. Heero’s limited experience with food not shaped in bar form couldn’t let him fairly rule it out, but he suspected the Dorito shell was not authentic Mexican cuisine. It wasn’t bad. The KitKat quesadilla did not, to his great confusion, involve cheese at all.

“I can’t believe we did that,” he mused, around a mouthful of lettuce and ambiguous meat. He eyed Relena, who was looking far more like her ordinary self, despite a cheekful of Cinnabon. “Do you really eat there? You’re a princess.”

“Former princess,” said Relena, primly licking frosting off her fingers. “Don’t be a snob.”

Heero thought about pointing out that one of them, and only one of them, had temporarily been Queen of the Earth Sphere, but decided that on the whole it was better left unsaid.

A few minutes of comfortable, crunchy silence passed before Relena finished off her quesadilla and sat back with a sigh. “Have you really never been to Taco Bell before?”

Heero shook his head. “No.” He eyed the remains of his Crunchwrap cautiously. “It’s … good.” It was, too, for a certain value of ‘good’.

“It would taste better if you were drunk or concussed,” said Relena, authoritatively. Her expression softened, and she leaned over to kiss him gently on the cheek. “Thank you.”

Heero opened his mouth, found he was entirely at a loss for words, and settled for silently handing her half the remaining Crunchwrap. Relena leaned against his shoulder as she ate it, and together they admired the city lights.


End file.
